Alex Salmond liked winning elections. Indeed, he used to claim that he’d “never” lost an electoral contest in his three decades in Scottish politics. Well, he has now.

And he’ll be gutted by that. On Thursday night, the former First Minister tried to disguise his disappointment with the usual historical quotes and bonhomie, but his big, trademark eyes betrayed his real feelings.

More than most, he was a politician who revelled in the limelight. Salmond evidently loved being First Minister of Scotland for seven years, and on resigning from that position after the 2014 independence referendum he quickly gambled on a Westminster comeback to keep himself in the political game.

But Salmond in the autumn of his years was often a parody of his former self.

It is uncertain where Salmond will go from here (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

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Having managed to rise above the fray as leader of a minority government from 2007, generally keeping his less attractive qualities in check, after winning a landslide in 2011 his behaviour became increasingly erratic, attacking opponents and particularly the ‘mainstream media’, which was ironic given his mastery of the soundbite and headline-grabbing PR stunt.

Although he more than anyone else brought about that historic referendum, by 2014 Salmond had become an increasingly divisive figure, a ‘marmite’ politician either loved or loathed without much in between.

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Long-suffering advisers had to spend increasingly amounts of political energy explaining away unhelpful statements to the media.

And after his resignation in 2014 he got much worse, apparently convinced that the normal rules of the political game no longer applied. Salmond revelled, ironically, at being back in the House of Commons, attempting to be a ‘shock jock’ on LBC, popping up on the Kremlin mouthpiece Russia Today and taking increasingly bizarre pops at the ‘Yoon media’.

Salmond led the charge for independence in 2014 (Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

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He was supposed to be the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman, but that kind of got lost in the mix. Salmond was enjoying himself, some might say being over indulgent. Hubris was never far behind. A few weeks ago he mocked Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson for suggesting his Gordon constituency might fall to the auld enemy, but fall it did.

But Salmond, who led the SNP – on and off – for a quarter of a century, had a good innings.

As he said early on Friday morning, he stood for either Westminster or Holyrood on ten occasions and was successful ninety per cent of the time. That, however, will have made his defeat even more painful, his first since losing a student election at St Andrews four decades ago.

Nicola Sturgeon has been urged to take IndyRef2 'off the table' (Image: REUTERS/Russell Cheyne)